![]() ![]() Priscilla Wald, author of “Contagious: Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative” and an English professor at Duke University, says those pronouncements are often the beginning of an “outbreak narrative.” Hysteria tends to take hold, experts say, the moment that health officials label an outbreak of disease an epidemic or pandemic. “There is almost hysterical fear about Ebola on behalf of distant people in developed countries who think, ‘This is going to come and get us.’ “ “People perceive this as a very dramatic disease,” said David Quammen, a science writer and the author of “Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic.” ![]() “It looks like the movies, and we’ve been prepped for a cinematic response,” he said – for the plot to unfold much like it does in a film. “What we see on this side of the ocean is poor people dying, and doctors and health aides in space suits. “We’re fascinated by epidemics,” said Philip Alcabes, director of the public health program at the Adelphi University Center for Health Innovation. The drama of infection, and the horrible death wrought by Ebola, only adds to our morbid attention. ![]() Our fears are reflections of an infectious disease narrative fed to the public for years – by health officials, by the media and through a potent story delivered in books and movies about the “Bug or Virus That Will Kill Us All,” experts say. ![]()
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